Red List: Least Concern (LC). GB Status: Common.

See also Moth of the Week (20/06/2023).

Previously considered likely extinct but the use of pheromone lures has shown the continued presence of the species in the region.

Identification

Usually distinctive.

Recording Method.

Males are readily attracted to pheromone lures. The lure has transformed regional recording of this species.  Flies in daylight  but very rarely recorded by day without a lure.

Life cycle

One generation. Overwinters as a part-grown larva, when it lives inside the trunks, branches or stems of the foodplant. Larvae August to May.

Larval foodplants

Osiers and willows.

Habitat

Sallow carr, damp woodland with mature willows. Riverside sallows.

History

R. S. Gordon (1913) stated that: ‘I have never seen the perfect insect. Took several larvae and pupae in willow on islands, Drumwalt Loch, Mochrum on 27th June 1898, and in willows along Malzie Burn, 1st July 1899.’ These records were from Wigtownshire.

MOGBI (1985) with their distribution map record the species in Dumfriesshire which would be the record by F. W. Smith and Arthur Duncan from Closeburn in 1942.